Jenny Desrosier '11, who attended Groton School, a boarding school in Massachusetts, says her high school pedigree made a difference in the college application process.
"25 percent of the kids in my grade are going to Ivy League schools," she said. "(Colleges) know the kids are prepared."
But, according to a new study from the Center on Education Policy, attending a private school instead of a public school has little effect on a person's future, whether measured by rate of college attendance, academic success in high school itself or job satisfaction.
The study focused on poorer students in an effort to influence public policy debates over public school funding. "We focused on urban students of the lowest socioeconomic status because these are the ones generally targeted by voucher programs," Jack Jennings, president of the center, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.
The study contradicts previous studies done on the topic that had identified attending private school as an advantage in education, the center says. The new study, a regression analysis of already published data, says better performance and test scores by private school graduates can be attributed to factors other than where students went to school, such as socioeconomic status and parental involvement in students' education.
According to the study, once family background and socioeconomic status are taken into account, students in public schools tend to do just as well academically as students in private schools and that public school students are just as likely as private school students to attend a four-year college.
The report also concludes that the type of high school that a student attends does not affect the person's job satisfaction or "civic-mindedness" when measured at age 26.
But, the study says, students from private schools may have an advantage in admission to elite colleges because secular private high school students had higher SAT scores on average than public school students.
"The idea that private school students have an advantage in gaining admittance to elite colleges was an inference based upon the fact that their students did better on the SAT," Jennings wrote.
"Generally speaking, we don't admit schools - we admit students. So whether a student is from a private, public or parochial school isn't material to the case," said Dean of Admission Jim Miller '73. "We want to see that students have pushed themselves against whatever program is available to them."
In Brown's class of 2011, 58 percent of students came from public high schools, 32 percent from private schools, 9 percent from parochial schools and 1 percent from other programs, Miller said.
Nationally, about 8.4 percent of all high school students attended private school in fall 2006, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Miller said the higher proportion of private school students in Brown's class is a factor of who is applying to the University. "Students from private schools constitute 35 percent or so of our applicant pool, which is certainly higher than the national percentages of students in those schools," he said.
Overall, most students interviewed by The Herald who attended public schools said they didn't think the issue affected their acceptance to Brown, while private school graduates said it did make a difference.
Tasnuva Islam '11 attended a selective public magnet school in New York City. The many Advanced Placement courses her school offered helped her explore the options she had in deciding what to study, she said.
Jasmine Chukwueke '10, who attended a public high school, said Advanced Placement classes were her school's most important contribution in preparing for college. But most of her preparation for the admission process, Chukwueke said, was through a private college counselor.
Edward Cava '11 transferred from his public high school in Florida to a Quaker boarding school in Pennsylvania during 10th grade.
"I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't gone to private school," he said. "The criteria for me to get into college would have been different."
But Lily Cohen '11, who attended Choate Rosemary Hall in Connecticut, said her school's atmosphere motivated students to plan for college.
"Everyone around you was so focused on college," she said.
